Australian official war artists are those who have been expressly employed by either the Australian War Memorial (AWM) or the Army Military History Section (or its antecedents).[1] These artist soldiers depicted some aspect of war through art; this might be a pictorial record or it might commemorate how war shapes lives.[2]
War artists have explored a visual and sensory dimension of war which is often absent in written histories or other accounts of warfare.[1] Official war artists have been appointed by governments for information or propaganda purposes and to record events on the battlefield;[3] but there are many other types of war artist.
A war artist creates a visual account of war by showing its impact as men and women are shown waiting, preparing, fighting, suffering, celebrating,[4] The works produced by war artists illustrate and record many aspects of war, and the individual's experience of war, whether allied or enemy, service or civilian, military or political, social or cultural. The rôle of the artist and his work embraces the causes, course and consequences of conflict and it has an essentially educational purpose.[2] For example, C.E.W. Bean's Anzac Book influenced the artists who grew up between the two world wars; and the war art of their childhoods provided a precedent and format for them to follow as war artists of the Second World War.[5]
The AWM have appointed war artists to record the activities of Australian forces in Korea, Vietnam, East Timor and Afghanistan; and both the AWM and the Australian Army have appointed official war artists to depict Australian forces in Iraq.
Artworks by Arthur Streeton and sculptures by Web Gilbert on display at the Australian War Memorial in 2012
The Australian tradition of war artists started during First World War, with the collection by Charles Bean of contributions by soldiers at Gallipoli to what became The Anzac Book, published in May 1916.
Will Dyson, an expatriate Australian artist living in London, petitioned the Australian government to allow him to travel to the Western Front where Australian forces were fighting. In 1917 he was finally granted permission to accompany the Australian Imperial Force to record the activities of its soldiers and thus became the first Australian official war artist.
The Australian War Records Section was created in 1917, largely as a result of lobbying by Bean, to implement the Commonwealth's war art scheme, and ten expatriate volunteers already in England were nominated as "official artists". In August 1917 H. C. Smart selected two, Leist and Power, to cover the European theatre. Their contracts ended in November, and Bryant volunteered to work there over winter. Lambert left for Egypt on Christmas Day 1917.[6] This scheme was expanded by appointing artists who were already in uniform, designated "AIF artists".[7]
Artists commissioned as members of the AIF to work officially as artists for Australia with troops in the field, specially appointed to visit the front for periods ranging from three months upwards:
France
LT. Will Dyson — Was constantly with the troops from Somme, winter 1916 till end of war; his were mostly figure subjects in black and white.
LT. Fred Leist — Saw third Battle of Ypres and winter, 1917. His subjects were figures and landscape.
LT. H. Septimus Power — Third Battle of Ypres and winter, 1917; mainly with the artillery; horses, figures and landscape.
LT. Arthur Streeton — Last campaign on Somme; country subjects, landscape, Battle of Hamel, &c.
LT. Charles Bryant — Winter of 1917 at Messines; landscape, sea transports at Boulogne, &c.
LT. James Quinn — Last campaign on Somme, mainly portraits.
LT. A. Henry Fullwood — Last campaign on Somme and Villers-Bretonneux; mainly landscapes.
LT. John Longstaff — Last campaign on Somme; mainly portraits.
Mainly younger artists who had enlisted in the A.I.F., and fought through with the troops, later being detailed specially for the work upon pictures for war records:
Egypt and France.
CAPT. Will Longstaff — Egypt and France; horses, desert landscape, aeroplanes
LT. George Benson — From landing to end of war; all subjects
LT. Frank R. Crozier — From Lone Pine to end of war; all subjects
France.
LT. James F. Scott — Wounded in third Battle of Ypres; served till end of war; all subjects
LT. Louis McCubbin — Winter of 1917 to end of war; landscapes
LT. Daryl Lindsay — Winter of 1916 to end of war; general subjects and medical drawings
SSGT James MacDonald — Working as an A.I.F. artist at the time of the Battle of Hamel[6]
The practice of artists being members of the military services broadly ended after the Korean War. Those artists who as members of the military were tasked to produce artistic works, while being official war artists are also Veteran Artists, as is any current or former member of the military who engages in the arts.
^"Australian War Artists". Cairns Post. Vol. XXXII, no. 3453. Queensland, Australia. 4 September 1919. p. 6. Retrieved 8 June 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
Reid, John B. (1977). Australian Artists at War: Compiled from the Australian War Memorial Collection. Volume 1. 1885–1925; Vol. 2 1940–1970. South Melbourne, Victoria: Sun Books. ISBN978-0-7251-0254-8; OCLC 4035199